The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Hunters may have another 124 acres of land to prowl in the upcoming hunting season.
The township Open Space Advisory Committee on June 15 voted to recommend the Township Council including a 124-acre tract known a the “Route 518 Tract” to Franklin’s hunting inventory. The area would generate another 10 hunting licenses.
Adding the property, roughly bordered by routes 518 and 27, would help the township deal with its burgeoning deer population, Tara Kenyon, the township’s open space consultant, told the committee.
“Franklin Township has an excessive population of deer,” she said.
The state has set the dates for the 2021-22 deer season as September 11 to February 19, 2022.
The breakdown of the seasons is as follows:
- The first season, for bow hunting, is September 11 to October 29
- The second season, for bow and firearm hunting, is October 30 to December 31
- The firearm season is January 1, 2022 to February 19, 2022, with the six-day firearm season for shotgun, muzzleloader rifle, or bow and arrow from December 5-11.
The Committee also voted to recommend that all grassland preserves be closed for the duration of the hunting seasons. The preserves would be open on Sundays during hunting season, since hunting is prohibited on Sundays.
Township Councilman Ted Chase, teh Council liaison to teh Committee, once again argued that the John Clyde Memorial Grassland Preserve, formerly known as the Griggstown Grassland Preserve, be kept open for non-hunters. He was outvoted.
“Every year I argue on behalf of the Griggstown residents who are not hunters who want to walk there,” he said. “And every year I get outvoted.”
Chase argued that certain areas of the preserve could be opened, but Committee member Chris Williams said the problem with that plan is that “people don’t stay in those fields, they wander all over the place.”
